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Sunday, November 6, 2011

It's November, Are You Thinking Christmas?

Technically, it's November 5th and no, I wasn't thinking Christmas until I returned home from work and found this on my front stoop (that's the large landing of the front stairs that lead into your home if your not from around here).

I had seen a funny comic a few days ago with a turkey holding a shot gun to Santa telling him to back off, that November was HIS month. I also read (though I'm not sure if it's true) that Macy's isn't decorating for Christmas until November 27th. Those two things put a smile on my face. I'm all about celebrating the month, season, and am trying really hard to staying in the moment. So, things like Christmas music in November or garland wrapped light poles down main streets are irritating me right now. There is so much more to celebrate in November! I'm in no rush to dig out ornaments, drape my house in tinsel or go shopping for gifts right now.
And no, it's not a Bah Humbug thing. IT'S NOVEMBER!
Here are some things that we will be celebrating this month in addition to Thanksgiving: Martinmas - click here for more info. What it's all about for our family - for me, specifically, it's the start of winter. The boys each get warm & fuzzy things. In the past they have gotten winter hats and mittens, we are pretty stocked up on both (though one can never have too many stretchy black mittens for kids). This year I think they are going to get thick socks and maybe a scarf. We made lanterns last year using mason jars and covering them with tissue paper so that we wouldn't have to re-make lanterns every year. We will light a candle for each one. We will be celebrating it on Friday, November 11th, which is alsoVeterans Day - click here for more info. We honor this day by making cards for soldiers to be used by AMillionThanks.org
As far as special school outing that we will be doing this month, I plan on taking the boys with me on Election Day when I vote. We will continue to celebrate the harvest season by helping the animals out this month and having a Nutting Party where we will throw out different nuts into our backyard for the animals to store for winter.
I use to be...what's a good way to put it, obsessed, maybe. Sure, I will go with obsessed. I use to be obsessed with getting all of my Christmas cards out in the mail the day before Thanksgiving. Why? you ask - because I wanted my card to be the first on to arrive, duh! But does that really matter in the grand scheme of things? I only have 50 cards to send out this year with a card list that exceeds 150. The only people getting cards this year are family members we will not being seeing over the holidays. Those are the boundaries I'm setting with myself this year. It's all in an effort to stay in the moment.

3 comments:

I always intend on getting things done ahead of time and I always try to get my cards out the first week of Dec so they'll be the first to arrive. Doesn't always work out that way though. Okay, who am I kidding? It rarely works out that way for me these days!

I am vacillating between wanting to do some prep now so that next month isn't so crazy, and wanting to focus on November first. We definitely won't do any decorating until after Thanksgiving, although we may put the tree up that weekend.

We plan to get the Christmas tree right after Thanksgiving, but that doesn't always happen. I'd like to have a tree prior to St. Nicholas Day though. If it happens, it happens. If not, oh well. Having the cards printed is as far as I have gotten with prep work, they are still sitting in the box on my craft table and will likely stay there for a while as I have a baby shower wall quilt and picture frame to get done prior to even thinking about that, (the shower was back in September, and the projects were part of our craft at the party - I have no excuse for my laziness).

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